Montrealer Nicole Palijan was on her way to work Tuesday morning when she heard a quack.
A duck was frantically pacing around a manhole at the bottom of her driveway in Riviere des Prairies, quacking incessantly.
Palijan and her son’s girlfriend thought about trying to pull off the manhole, but realizing it was quite heavy, they decided to call the city’s 311 service line. A worker arrived in about 10 minutes, who then reached out to someone from the Department of Aqueducts and Sewers. They arrived swiftly after, according to Palijan.
“They were nice enough to help us right away,” Palijan said. “I was impressed with how fast they came.”
It quickly became a community effort, with neighbours throwing pieces of bread into the manhole to feed the baby ducks.
Once the manhole cover was lifted, the city crew members had to improvise a way to lure the ducks to safety.
“They had to makeshift their way with a bucket; they pulled out the babies,” Palijan explained. “They basically fished them out with a bucket.”
All but a few of the 14 ducklings came up with the first bucket rides, and it was only once the manhole cover was back on that the workers realized some of the ducklings had wandered into a pipe.
The workers made noise in another nearby manhole to scare the ducklings back to the original utility hole, from where they were rescued.
“They knew right away and ran to their mummy,” Palijan said with relief. “And she wouldn’t leave until all of them were out, actually.”
Palijan was late getting to work as an optician, but her boss understood when she saw the video of the stranded ducklings.
“As mummies, we felt her pain and it felt good (to help them),” she said. ”I was really happy the city came right away.”
